Touch Me Not (Manwhore, #1)(32)
“Anyway, back on topic, the bet,” she said. She needed a few minutes to process the whole deep side of Nikoli Kincaid. “People know me, they know I’d never go out with you willingly, so I came up with something they’d believe, that Adam would believe.”
“Boy Wonder does know about your car addiction.” Nikoli nodded as if everything made sense. “So it’s not a real bet, then? I can do…”
“Oh, it’s a real bet,” Lily interrupted. “The way I see it, this…proposition of yours is completely one-sided.”
“One-sided?” he asked incredulously. “You get Boy Wonder out of it.”
“But what if I don’t?” Lily asked. “What if I can’t get past my fear of people touching me? Or what if you can help me and I still don’t get Adam? What if we’re both wrong and he loves Sue too much to leave her? Theoretically, if that happens, you might manage to get me to sleep with you. You win in either scenario, and I get jack. This way, I stand a chance of walking away with a car that I want more than almost anything else.”
Nikoli watched her through hooded eyes. She hadn’t noticed he’d pressed his feet against her thighs. She was so focused on their conversation, she forgot to be afraid. It was definitely progress and proved if he was patient, he’d end up with her in his bed, so why shouldn’t he bet his car? Not a chance in hell he’d lose it to begin with. So why not?
“All right, Lily Bells, I’ll bite. If you can stay out of my bed for three months, then you can have my car.”
Her face lit up and she nearly jumped up and down where she sat. It didn’t take a lot to make her happy. He settled back, content to watch for a minute. She still hadn’t noticed his feet, and he debated telling her. He didn’t want to ruin the moment, but then again, she might be so shocked, she shoved them.
“How old is Kade?” she asked, taking another bite of her chowder.
“He’s twenty-seven.” Nikoli watched the spoon disappear into her mouth and then slide out between her lips. He rubbed her leg with his foot in response. “Lives in Virginia and works for the FBI.”
“Really?” Lily asked. “He didn’t go back to Russia?”
“No, none of my brothers did. We might eventually, but we like America. We have more freedoms here than we do in Russian. Kade and I have been trying to convince our parents to move back to the States for years, but our mother loves Russia.”
“Hey, Bob, turn that up!”
Both Nikoli and Lily looked to see the guy behind the counter turn the volume up on the wall mounted TV screen. A reporter stood in a park, a crime scene behind him. The body of the missing girl who had been all over the news had just been found. People started talking all at once, but Nikoli pulled his attention back to Lily. She was frowning and shaking her head.
“Are you worried about that?” he asked.
“Not really worried, just sad. Freaked too. They found that poor girl really close to campus.”
“Whoever he is, he doesn’t seem to be targeting college campuses, at least,” Nikoli offered, hoping to calm her nerves a bit. A lot of the girls on campus were starting to worry about that. Campus security had posted flyers everywhere warning women not to go anywhere alone if they could help it. He might be freaked too if he was a girl.
“Let’s hope it stays that way,” she said, staring at the TV screen. “Are you about ready to go? I lost my appetite.”
“Sure.” He signaled the waitress for the check. “One thing, though.”
“Hmm?”
“How do you plan on getting out of your seat?”
She gave him a questioning look, and he pointed at his feet, pressed up against her thighs all snug and cozy. She looked down, and her mouth dropped open. Her eyes darted from his face to his feet. He waited patiently for her to get over the shock. Julie set the check down on the table, and he nodded at whatever she said, but didn’t break eye contact with Lily.
Lily gasped and nearly had a small heart attack right then and there. Nikoli had managed to press his feet against her and she’d never noticed. How had she not noticed this? She could feel them like a hot iron burning through her pajama bottoms now that she saw them, but God only knew how long he’d been like this. She’d been too distracted to realize he’d pulled another sneak attack on her.
Strange thing was, she wasn’t about to hyperventilate. It could be because it was just his shoes and not technically him. There was no skin to skin contact. Did this even qualify as touching? Her brain screamed yes, especially when he rubbed his foot back and forth. She felt it, and it felt…nice. It was such a foreign sensation, she reached out and pushed his foot away from her without thinking.
Nikoli let out a low hum of satisfaction. Lily wasted no time in scrambling out of the booth and fleeing the diner. She went straight to his car and stayed there, trying to focus. She did it. She’d touched him. Oh. My. God. She did it! Relief swept through her. She’d been terrified she couldn’t do it, scared that she was too broken to fix, but she touched him!
Sure it was only a shoe, but even yesterday, she wouldn’t have been able to do that. His sneak attacks were working, making her more comfortable with him. Nikoli could distract her like no one else, and maybe that was the key to learning to touch and be touched. She could do this. For the first time since she was sixteen years old, she had hope. Hope.